


The Future of the League of Shadows

by GlibbityGlop



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ficlet, Multi, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 07:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3372155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlibbityGlop/pseuds/GlibbityGlop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Talia arrives back at the League of Shadows post-TDKR with an important mission for Bane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Future of the League of Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> This is a ficlet as part of a writing exercise. Came up with it and wrote it in an hour, to make sure I wrote something, anything today.

Talia had left to become Miranda Tate some years before their plan went into action: to create a backstory, to form relationships, to make her undercover identity plausible in order to destroy Gotham.

They arrived back at the League unsuccessful, with an injured group some diminished. Barsad had been shot and the rifleman was tetchy without full use of his dominant arm. Talia had suffered some spinal damage from a truly awful car crash. Bane's mask had been damaged. Gotham lived, beacon of ugliness and stain on the earth that it was.

Bane helped wheel Talia's wheelchair into her designated room. This was on the groundfloor. Talia was temperamental - she hated to be seen as weak. Especially by her own followers. But Bane knew her too well. She had no shame of her condition in front of him. He also knew that her anger was often driven by pain, in this case fear. Fear she would not get better.

But Bane thought at the other League members did; that Talia would rise again. The Batman had managed to recover while in hell on earth. Talia would walk again, as graceful and powerful as ever. And if she did not, Bane would never leave her side as he had not when she was a child. Talia had not been expected to return and Master Shroud, the new leader in her absence, was unhappy.

"Is that all?" Bane asked, coming to kneel beside her wheelchair.

Talia gripped the sides of her chair. "Yes that will be all."

"Do you need help to the bathroom?" His mask rumbled softly.

"I am not a child Bane!" She slammed her hands down, mouth a snarl. The outbursts were frequent. But it was early in her recovery.

"The chair, if it stays, it is not such an obstacle, habibti."

Talia looked down at the mountain of muscle kneeling beside her, staring at her with such devotion. She could overcome Bane, not through force but will. If she was to stay in the chair, she could seek power in ways other than force. As she already knew. Already she felt the urge to tell Bane everything. But it was early days in that secret's unfolding and there were more important matters to attend to.

"Master Shroud will attempt to kill me," Talia said simply. Bane's eyes widened as if this had not occurred to him. Where Bane was almost omnipresent elsewhere he was blind to Talia. Such a simple and obvious plot, but he could not see anything but his own feelings when he looked at her. "It is what I would do if there was a challenge to my authority. If he does not attempt it, he will not be worth of the League of Shadows, even in my absence."

"Do you wish for me to kill him, Talia?" Her name was a sigh through the mask.

"No. He can wait." She gripped the armrests again. "He will not attack with me weak. And with you gone."

"Gone, habibti?"

"You need to go back to Gotham."

Bane blinked. He would not return to finish their work without her, leaving her alone in a world without him.

"You need to bring back a boy for me."

"A boy? Just any?"

"No." Talia breathed in deeply. "8 years is a long time to be away, beloved. I researched my father, not just his work but his life. He was not always Ra's al Ghul. You know he was born in Asia, before travelling. He had a sister you know. One who also traveled, but to America."

"To Gotham," Bane guessed.

"She died quickly there. I can only assume it was a motivation for my father's hatred of that place, as his death was for me. She married though. Gambler, drunk. He did not survive long in Gotham either." Bane sat silent, watchful and patient. "There was a child. I assumed he died."

"He did not," Bane encouraged.

"While I was there I met a boy. Not a boy, a young man. And something about him... I saw the shadow of my own father. Yet my own age. I looked into his past. He entered an orphanage, anonymous parentage, about a month after the man my father's sister married had died."

"You cannot know-"

"Bane, he was very sweet. Trusting. Let me brush his hair." Her eyes stared into the middle distance, in the small room of the League's accommodation. "His hair matched mine in DNA. A quarter-match. 13% match, average for a first cousin. You will bring me this boy, and I will regain my strength or the blood of Ra's al Ghul will find a new heir to lead the League of Shadows."

"Tell me his name."

Talia smiled. "Robin John Blake. A devotee of Batman's. So sweet. So trusting." Her smile left. "We will teach him better than that. You understand I cannot trust this mission to anyone else. He is soft, still truly a boy. He is a thousand times more vulnerable than I will ever be, spine damage or no."

"I will do so, Talia. Who will protect you while I am gone?"

"Barsad can do a fine job, Bane. If you can trust him with your life, you can trust him with mine. Bring me back the boy within a fortnight. And then. Then we kill Shroud."

  
Bane nodded, stood and left.

Talia was left alone, contemplating the railings installed to allow her to drag herself from bedroom to bathroom. Yes, a fortnight. She would tell them both, Bane and Blake, when they returned. She would be starting to show then. She or Blake could run the League of Shadows until such time as her child could take over. Bane would be so pleased to have another child to protect. The child of Talia al Ghul and the deceased Batman. That was a child to rule the League of Shadows.

**Author's Note:**

> Headcanon: and then Bane/John training. John gets deliberately brought-on Stockholm Syndrome for Talia and Bane. Has a family and sense of belonging with the League. Batman (not dead- spoiler alert) hears about his son and is all - oh shit, gotta do something about that. And it's all Robin Versus Batman. In the end someone dies, but I haven't decided who yet. How about Talia and Bruce both die, and Bane and John take in lil Damian. And everyone lives happily ever after.


End file.
